Episode IV - A Poetic Soul

“So…” Ellis said into the prolonged silence as both men stared at the strange silver ring, “what does this mean, exactly?”

The Former Baron turned and looked at him, gave him an expression which was either puzzled or alarmed, or a strange combination of the two, and replied, “You know, I don’t have the slightest idea.”

Ellis sighed, “So we’re not really any further on then, are we?  I’m stuck here!”

“Well no, not necessarily.  I said I don’t have the slightest idea what it means, but that doesn’t mean I can’t make use of it.”

“How?”

“Well for a start I can take a closer look at the ring and see if I can figure out more about the soul that inhabits it and what it is capable of.”

“But, it’s just a soul trapped in a ring.  You’re not suggesting that if I rub it hard enough I’m going to get three wishes are you?”

“I have no idea what you are talking about.”

“Nevermind.  All I mean his, how can it be capable of anything?”

“Haven’t you been listening to a thing I’ve told you?  Hypostatick energy, that’s all anything needs to do anything and this thing is almost nothing but.  It isn’t limited by flesh and bone, only a small ring of silver and an insignificant gemstone.”

Ellis lifted the ring up and watched the light of the burners reflect off its surface.  “You think it’s powerful then?”

“Almost certainly.  Perhaps it is even the reason you are here.”

“Summoned by a ring?  I guess that would make me the genie.”

“I had a cousin Jeanie once.  If only she hadn’t been so stubborn about sleeping in the East Wing that night…”

“Yeah… Can I just leave you with that ring research?  I really need to lie down.”

“By all means.  There’s a guest bedroom in the East Wing.”

“Uh, thanks.”

After getting directions and assurances that Cousin Jeanie had in fact gone missing from the East Wing of the original Grand Chateau Von Spektr, Ellis made his way back up the stairs from the basement and into the dusty hallway once more.  He stared for a moment at the covered paintings and then, curiosity getting the better of him, he lifted up the corner of one of the dust sheets and took a peek at the framed object within.  To his surprise he discovered that all the frame surrounded was empty air.  A quick check of some of the others revealed the same situation.

Puzzling as to why someone would cover up a collection of old frames, when everything else in the house was covered in a thick layer of dust, Ellis made his way up the crooked staircase and ventured into the new East Wing, which was really just a small section of corridor leading off to once side of the landing with a sum total of three doors and a trapdoor leading up to what Ellis assumed must be some sort of attic.

The Former Baron had told him to take the last door on the left, but as he was walking past the first two doors he noticed one of them was slightly ajar and that a greenish glow was coming from within.  Again, the natural curiosity of one who has found himself somewhere totally new took over and he pushed the door open.  On the other side, grinning at him fiercely, stood another massive, terrifying Grinder, bathed in a pulsating green light which almost seemed to twinkle off its metallic teeth.

Ellis let out a yelp of fear and staggered backwards into the hall, bumping into the door on the other side.  His heart was trying to leap out of his chest and his eyes were darting all over the place, taking in every little detail of the horror that stood before him.  With his senses so keen on pointing out how sharp and rusted the Grinder’s teeth were, or how small and dark its eye sockets were, or even how massive and solid its body was covered with that slate-like scaly skin, they were a little slow at realising that it wasn’t moving, its eyes weren’t burning as they had been on the one he had been chased by earlier that morning and that it was fixed to a brass plate on the floor with a sign reading, ‘Lithodermus ferrodens, caught 12^th Federickus 15 R.D., near Blizzardale’.

Somehow someone had hunted a Grinder, killed it, stuffed it and mounted it.  Ellis didn’t even want to know how, but, now that he was pretty sure that it wasn’t going to kill him, he stepped closer and examined it in more detail, reaching out and touching one of the scales. It felt cold and hard and, unsurprisingly, just like slate.  The edges that stuck out, away from the skin, were rough and even quite sharp in places.  Ellis shuddered.

Beyond the stuffed Grinder was a room filled with glass display cases (covered in dust, of course), a large weapons rack holding up an array of bladed weapons, poles and firearms of assorted sizes and shapes, a series of banners, flags and tapestries depicting scenes of battles and two large, overfilled bookcases, access to which was denied by the huge pile of books lying on the floor in front of them.  The green glow was coming from an orb that was hovering the midst of rotating brass rings, attached to a pedestal with a glass front, revealing rapidly whirring clockwork inside.

Ellis stepped over to the nearest display case, wiped away the layer of dust and peered in.  It was a collection of stone arrowheads, just like the ones he had seen in the local museum in Larksborough.  Each had a little paper tag beside it with details of where it was found and when.  He couldn’t help but be intrigued by some of the place names listed.  Knife Street and Gallows Pass suggested an interesting history.

He moved along the case a little, wiping away more dust as he did so and was startled to reveal a large skull with a collection of metal axe heads next to it, mostly rusted away.  It didn’t take long to guess that the tools and the skull were all from Grinders, with the axe heads being the remains of ancient teeth.

Turning away from the cases, he examined one of the tapestries.  It showed a landscape of ruined buildings, overgrown with vines and shaded by tall trees in which an army of men dressed in brass armour fought off a horde of creatures which resembled Grinders, but which were thinner and had long, spiked tails which they were using as weapons.  It was a particularly bloody scene.

He spent a few more minutes scanning the room, picking up details here and there, before stifling a yawn and reminding himself why he had come upstairs in the first place.  There was too much for him to take in in one go anyway.  The museum contained a vast catalogue of historical elements for an entire other culture, and as much as Ellis wanted to understand more of it, he knew that he couldn’t, not right away.

Closing the door behind him, he made his way to the end of the corridor, stepped into the unsurprisingly dusty guest room and collapsed on the bed.  A cloud of dust rose up out of the sheets, making him cough, but it was actually quite comfortable and he was asleep within minutes.

He was awoken, minutes later, or so it seemed to him , by an excited stream and the sound of the door to the guest room bursting open.  He rolled over, sat up and rubbed his eyes.  An amber light tinged sickly green was filtering through the small window, which suggested evening to Ellis, although he was not sure.  The Former Baron was standing in the doorway, rubbing his hands together in an exaggerated fashion and offering up his best, thin grin.

“Oh good, you’re awake!  That saves time.”  Ellis rubbed his eyes again, then groaned.  His head hurt, proving that even travelling to another world could not prevent a hangover.  “Quick!  Come down to the basement.  I have something to show you, oh yes, yes, yes!”

The caricature-thin figure disappeared from the doorway.  Ellis dragged himself to his feet and did his best to follow him downstairs, raking his hands through his hair and moaning the whole time.

The basement looked much the same as it had before, except there was a purple light emanating from one of the workbenches and the Former Baron was basking, gleefully, in its glow.

“What is that?”  Ellis managed to ask through the pain in his head.

“It’s a device I made whilst you were sleeping.  It’s much like the one you were sitting on this morning, but it’s designed specifically to explore the hypostatick potential of this ring.”

“I wasn’t glowing like that was I?”

“Oh my goodness, no!  That would have been far too dangerous!  We can’t have people wandering about the place, just glowing, uncontained!”

“Okay, okay, whatever!  Why is the ring glowing then?”

“Because, my dear L.J.-”

“It’s Ellis, actually.”

“Oh, sorry.  What did I call you?”

“Not Ellis.  Please continue.”

“Yes, as I was saying…”  He looked puzzled for a moment, then asked, “What was I saying?”

“The glow!”  Ellis replied, exasperated.

“Oh, yes.  Yes indeed.  The glow.  Yes.  Well, basically…” he scratched his head, “Ah, Yes!  Well the glow isn’t caused by the machine.  All the machine does is probe the hypostatick energies within the ring and transcribes the patterns of it onto the parchment, here,” he pointed down to another sheet of paper on another brass plate onto which a series of complex and incomprehensible squiggles had been burned, “but in doing so the machine seems to have triggered a response from the ring.”

“What kind of response?”

“Well, like you or I, it does not like being probed and reacted accordingly.  It is fighting the machine, hence this…” he waved vaguely at the sheet of paper again.

“What does it mean?”

“It’s poetry.  Your ring is attacking my invention with poetry!”  He laughed like this was the most remarkable thing in the world.  Thinking about it, Ellis concluded that maybe it was.

“So… it’s the soul of a poet, then?”

“Oh, goodness no, but if it can write poetry on this parchment then maybe we can communicate with it and it can tell us how to get to your world!”

“That’s great!”

“Yes, yes, yes!  It’ll be the greatest discovery in Hypostatick Philosophy since the Aetherised Bread Maker!”

“I’ll take your word on that.  So, how do we get talking to it?”

“For that I’m going to need to invent another machine.”

“Well you just get on with that, then, and I’ll go back and catch some more sleep…”

“Oh my, no!  No time for sleep, I’m afraid.  I’m going to need some other materials for this, which means braving the streets once more and I need you to come with me.”

“You mean… out there… with the Grinders?”

Ellis felt something shrivel up inside himself.

“Oh yes!  Consider it exercise.  It’ll be fun!”

NEXT EPISODE

PREVIOUS EPISODE
Like SHADOW? Please vote!